Episode 94: Marcy Hersh and the fight for female refugees

Marcy Hersh recently returned from a research trip to the Balkans, where she followed refugee women and girls as they made their way through Europe. Marcy is a senior advocacy officer with the Women’s Refugee Commission, and we kick off our conversation discussing what she witnessed on that trip and the broader struggles that are unique to female refugees around the world.

Marcy has had a long career in humanitarianism, including a stint in Haiti just after the earthquake. She started off as an english teacher abroad. We discuss what compelled her to teaching, to international affairs, to feminism, and how reading Simone de Beauvoir on a desolate outer atoll of the Marshal Islands gave her a new perspective on her life and career.

This is a great conversation about a career in humanitarian work, and why the needs of women and girls displaced by disaster require special attention from the international community.